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African Art
in the Barnes Foundation
The Triumph of L’Art nègre and the Harlem Renaissance Edited and with an essay by Christa Clarke
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Bamana peoples
Female Figure, late 19th–early 20th century Mali Wood, iron 13 1/8 x 4 1/16 x 2 1/2 (33.3 x 10.3 x 6.4) A123
Bamana wooden sculptures representing humans, collectively known as yirimògòniw or “people of wood,” are made in a wide range of styles and sizes. The majestic, massively proportioned female and male figures that are displayed in annual rituals of the Jo and Gwan societies perform distinctive gestures, wear amulets and ornaments, and carry objects that provide important clues to their identity and meaning.1 In contrast, most Bamana figures are smaller, with stylized, geometric bodies and facial features. Like this example, they display few specific details that identify their role in Bamana culture. Nevertheless, these small, abstract Bamana figures may have been used in several contexts. Twin sculptures, called flanitokelen or flaniyiri, are commissioned when a twin dies in childhood, as a means of stabilizing and localizing his or her spirit so that the surviving twin may thrive.2 Young men who have been newly initiated into the Jo society sometimes carry small wooden figures called Jo nyeleniw as they travel through the countryside presenting performances that demonstrate their new knowledge as Jo members and their status as adult men eligible to marry. The Jo nyeleniw figures are rubbed with oil to make them glisten and are adorned with cloth and jewelry, reinforcing their resemblance to the young marriageable women that the new initiates hope to attract.3 Bamana figures may also represent specific individuals, such as a favorite wife, a deceased grandfather, or a close friend. Serving in the place of that person, they allow the owner or user to be comforted by the presence of his or her loved one.4 Once a sculpture has left its original context and entered a collection in the West, it is often impossible to determine its original function. Still, it may be worth noting that the Barnes Collection figure shown here resembles two other examples documented as twin figures.5 This Barnes figure, initially owned by the French Fauve artist Maurice de Vlaminck, is conceived as a series of curved and angular shapes and open spaces. Most distinctive are the yoke-shaped form of the shoulders and arms, the swelling hips, the proportionately small breasts and face, the sharp decorative notches along the outside of the transverse crest of the hairstyle, and the flattened back of the head. Almost identical features are seen on a Bamana figure formerly in the collection of Frieda and Milton Rosenthal6 and another in the collection of the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the University of California, Los Angeles.7 KE 1 2 3 4 5 6
. Ezra 1986, pp. 22–38. Brett-Smith 1994, p. 110; Imperato 1975, pp. 52–60, 83–84. . Ezra 1986, pp. 17–22; and Ezra 2001, pp. 137–138. . Brett-Smith 1994, pp. 177–178. . Imperato 1975, fig. 4; Henry 1910, p. 98. . Ezra 1986, fig. 5. The Rosenthal figure was sold at auction in 2008. See: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ ecatalogue/2008/the-collection-of-frieda-and-milton-rosenthal-african-and-oceanic-art-n08510/lot.3.html, accessed July 18, 2014. 7 . Fowler Museum, acc. no. X65-4767.
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Figure 1. Femme Foutanké et Malinké, postcard, Edmond Fortier, c. 1900–1910. The woman on the left wears the crested coiffure that was popular in the Mande region during the early twentieth century. [Register number KBA 00508, Frobenius-Institut]
Figure 2. Un forgeron bambara (Malinké), postcard. In this undated image, a Mande blacksmith poses with the tools of his trade. Note the word “Malinke” written in ink under the caption, which identifies him as “bambara,” suggesting confusion as to the man’s specific ethnic identity. Mande blacksmiths form an endogamous group that transcends the often-blurred boundaries of Mande ethnicities. [Register number KBA 02525, Frobenius-Institut]
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Mande peoples, possibly Malinké peoples
Figure, late 19th–early 20th century West Africa, possibly Mali Wood 12 1/8 x 2 1/8 x 2 1/8 (30.8 x 5.4 x 5.4) A270
It is clear from the book Primitive Negro Sculpture (1926) by Paul Guillaume and Thomas Munro that Albert Barnes and his circle fully understood the value of “the origin and history of a statue,” 1 and desired provenance despite the rarity of that information for most African objects in the early twentieth century. 2 This exceptional figure, although certainly Mande, embodies the problems associated with a paucity of contextual information. Simply carved and having a relatively rough, dry, and mottled surface, this female statue defies immediate attribution to a particular ethnic group within the greater Mande peoples. Although lacking an overall dark patina, small areas of deeper tone scattered across the surface suggest that it must have been handled on at least a few occasions, allowing an oily residue to penetrate those sections. Its most distinctive attribute is a series of pyro-engraved lines that delineate its facial features, genitalia, and scarifications. Although lacking the typical smooth, dark patina popular with collectors during the first decades of the 1900s, the figure’s surface inspires close study. An organic residue— probably millet porridge—is present along the figure’s left shoulder and hand, upper chest, and right side of the head. Applied over the dry, rough overall surface, the residue is a remarkable survival because, during this period, Western dealers often cleaned and polished sculptures. The presence of the residue suggests that the original owner used the figure—despite its unusual, rather crude surface—for a specific, possibly spiritual, purpose, even if only for a brief period. Most wooden figures from Mande peoples are carved by numuw, a group of spiritually powerful blacksmiths.3 The figure’s pyro-engraved marks—certainly made with a hot iron tool—reinforce the idea of its ties to numu manufacture.4 Likewise, burnishing the figure’s head with a hot metal blade likely created the color of the coiffure. Although the figure’s high-crested hairstyle is typical of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Mande region, the scarification patterns are more difficult to pinpoint geographically. The only clearly recognizable symbols are the lines radiating from the navel. Often interpreted as signifiers of childbirth, these are common throughout francophone West Africa, but they do not narrow the figure’s attribution. Most frustratingly, the lack of collection data for this figure makes it impossible to determine its exact function. It is tempting to identify the Barnes Foundation’s figure as the elusive komo tigi maani (“the little person of the Komo chief”), 5 a hastily carved female wooden figure that was used to represent the spiritual double (dya) of a deceased leader of the powerful komo association.6 Likewise, and more probably, the statue could have been a flanitokélé (“twin that remains”), a memorial carving that serves as a place for a deceased twin’s nyama, or vital life force.7 Even these attributions, however, are highly speculative. GHT 1 2 3 4 5 6
. Guillaume and Munro 1926, p. 61. . For Barnes’s involvement in this text, see Clarke 2003, p. 41. . McNaughton 1988, p. 7. . Imperato 2009, p. 186. . Ezra 1985, p. 46. . Dieterlen and Cissé 1972, p. 291. For detailed information about the role of Malinké blacksmiths in the komo society, see Kanté and Erny 1993, p.234–237. 7 . Imperato 2008, p.47.
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33a 33b
Edo peoples
Hip Ornament or Pendant, 19th–early 20th century Benin City, Nigeria Bronze 4 3/4 x 3 1/4 x 1 7/8 (12.1 x 8.3 x 4.8) A213
Edo peoples
Hip Ornament or Pendant, 19th–early 20th century Benin City, Nigeria Bronze 5 x 4 1/4 x 1 7/8 (12.7 x 10.8 x 4.8) A227
Courtiers and warriors in the Benin kingdom, located in what is now Nigeria, typically wore wrappers of fine cloth cinched at the left hip; a higher-ranking man would also wear a hip ornament over the tied cloth. Until the twentieth century, members of Igun Eronmwon, the royal bronze-casting guild, produced hip ornaments, standing figures, small altarpieces, plaques, and other artworks only for the Oba or for those he designated. The most common forms for hip ornaments are leopard’s heads and human heads, although crocodile heads and elephant heads are also known. Whether these different types have a particular meaning is unclear. In the twentieth century, Benin courtiers would commission metal hip masks of human faces when they reached Iyerhuan, the lowest rank in the upper levels of the court hierarchy.1 Yet in sixteenth-century reliefs, men wearing hip ornaments are of disparate rank; only one composition from this period (Fig. 1) displays a courtier wearing a hip ornament with a crowned human head similar to Barnes hip ornament 33a (A213). The dates for the two hip ornaments in the Barnes Collection are based on their stylized facial features and technical quality. The disproportionately large eyes outlined by a raised ridge are common to both hip ornaments, and the wide nose and lips of the crowned head are enlarged, abstracted features commonly associated with nineteenthcentury Benin aesthetics. A long-held theory for dating the Benin corpus holds that the quality of bronze production slowly declined from its zenith in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.2 Although this theory lacks nuance, the rough texture of the Barnes hip ornaments and their less accomplished details—from the poorly modeled coral netting on the crowned head to the hastily scratched facial markings on the other ornament—certainly reflect a lack of finesse. Other details also suggest that the Barnes pieces may be of a later date, when hip ornaments were no longer in fashion. Most hip ornaments have two loops hidden in the cavity in the back of the ornament. These loops would be used to firmly attach the object to the wearer’s garment. In contrast, both of the Barnes pieces have only a single, small loop at the top, which would allow the ornament to hang freely and potentially flip over. The face with the openwork border above the hairline on 33b (A227) has further unusual features. The same pattern is found on the bottom of many hip ornaments, including the Barnes’s crowned head, where it was used to hold chains and bells; however, the artist who cast this piece must have copied the pattern without understanding its use, because chains attached above would obscure the face. Likewise, the facial markings mix Yoruba, Igala, and Edo scarification patterns with fanciful diamonds and other imaginative motifs. Although similarly shaped faces are known in the Benin tradition (Fig. 2), it is likely that this object was made for the market, as Benin bronzes have been highly sought-after in Europe and elsewhere since 1897. KG 1 . Blackmun 2007, p. 358. 2 . Fagg 1963, p. 33.
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